After an 86-year absence, the NFL has brought back the Canton Bulldogs.

At least, the name is coming back in an NFL-sanctioned cartoon starring Jim Brown and Joshua Cribbs.

Brown and Cribbs, Cleveland Browns past and present, will provide the voices for their likenesses in an episode of NFL Rush Zone: Season of the Guardians, on Nicktoons.

The story line has the unbeaten Steelers Youth Tackle Football (YTF) team journeying to Canton to take on the Canton Bulldogs. The nervous Bulldogs are calmed by a player named Marty, and then inspired when Brown and Cribbs show up for a pep talk.

The episode will air at 9 p.m. Friday on Nicktoons. It also will air at 7 a.m. Saturday on NFL Network.

The real Cribbs has been in Canton before. In 2011, he popped up at a youth baseball game in Canton Township, where he pitched an inning to local 7- and 8-year-olds.

Brown is a permanent resident of Canton, so to speak, as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Canton Bulldogs were a charter member of the NFL in 1920. They were NFL champions in 1922 and 1923 and played their last game in Canton, at a stadium near Meyers Lake, in 1926.